Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I wanted to relay two weeks worth of experience with a HP DV6T-6100 laptop, i7-2630QM Quad Core with ATI 6770M 1GB GDDR5 graphics on a 15.6" 1920x1080 LCD. I got this system new for around $920 [I could have gotten a little cheaper as I ordered it with the larger 9 cell battery, 6GB of RAM, Bluetooth integrated, 7200 RPM 640MB hard drive]. The CPU base speed is 2.0Ghz, but runs Dolphin turbo at 2.8Ghz since it is only using 2 of the 4 cores.

Wii Sports Bowling and Punch Out has been my main benchmark games.

MY EXPERIENCE:

With Dolphin 3.0 on Windows 7 x64 on the ATI adapter, I find that Wii Sports is perfect. However, Punch Out is just not cutting it. It lags enough that running below 100% makes the game playable - but not true to console. Some other games are lagging too.

What I've learned is that gaming laptops are really in a state of serious flux. The real new problem is the shift toward muxless graphic switching. Under this new design, the Intel card is never really disabled and the ATI card is a slave to the Intel 3000 graphics... The ATI card renders and PAINTS to the Intel card frame-buffer which displays the final picture. So there is an extra delay - and worst of all, currently OpenGL drivers mode can not even be used on the ATI card and is only on the Intel. On Linux, even with beta 3.0 RC5 kernels and the latest X system, the muxless graphics switching is a complete disaster and most Linux Live CDs crash on booting, etc.

You can read gory details here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-pavil...phics.html

I've decided to go back to the drawing board. a 2.0Ghz i7 mobile CPU is just not really keeping up with Dolphin like I wish. The graphics processor really doesn't seem that important to Dolphin. So I decided to go with an older generation I7-2720QM DELL System that I got scratch and dent from Dell Outlet. It has a slower Nvidia NVS 4200M 512MB DDR3. THE GOOD news: the CPU i7 2.2Ghz base with 3.2Ghz turbo for dual core Dolphin, so should yield 10% increase.

All my experimenting with Intel 3000 graphics vs. ATI 6770M graphics on the i7 has shown to me that the CPU is really core to the emulator performance. I give up USB 3.0 on this older design of laptop, but it is $100 cheaper and I still get a 1080p display. Plus, most of all, the Dell allows me to MANUALLY switch the graphics in the BIOS.

I hope this helps someone. I hope to have the system in 1 week to test side by side before I return the HP.

The Lenovo y560p has discrete graphics, 'though it's also uses the 2630 QM like your HP and has a weaker GPU (HD 6570M).

(07-05-2011, 03:29 PM)Decimus10 Wrote: [ -> ]The Lenovo y560p has discrete graphics, 'though it's also uses the 2630 QM like your HP and has a weaker GPU (HD 6570M).

Many of the Lenovo Y460/Y560/Y570 have their own concerns with switchable graphics too. Cite: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-Y-U-...d-p/362815 And of course, you can order systems with different CPU. I could have ordered the HP with the faster CPU, but the price would have been significantly higher.

I'm trying to point out that in my experience an i7 2630QM @ 2.8Ghz Turbo seems to be a bit too slow for Dolphin. Especially on the newer (after 3.0) texcache-rewrite. There just are too many places in games where I'm seeing 45 FPS @ 2.8Ghz. Even a boost of 10% to 3.2Ghz and 50 FPS I hope makes the games more playable. Obviously I also try different versions and settings in Dolphin - but it's pretty obvious to me that the inability to overclock most laptops really limits the CPU horsepower on a under-$1000 budget.

(07-05-2011, 08:06 PM)RoundSparrow Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-05-2011, 03:29 PM)Decimus10 Wrote: [ -> ]The Lenovo y560p has discrete graphics, 'though it's also uses the 2630 QM like your HP and has a weaker GPU (HD 6570M).

Many of the Lenovo Y460/Y560/Y570 have their own concerns with switchable graphics too. Cite: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-Y-U-...d-p/362815 And of course, you can order systems with different CPU. I could have ordered the HP with the faster CPU, but the price would have been significantly higher.

I'm trying to point out that in my experience an i7 2630QM @ 2.8Ghz Turbo seems to be a bit too slow for Dolphin. Especially on the newer (after 3.0) texcache-rewrite. There just are too many places in games where I'm seeing 45 FPS @ 2.8Ghz. Even a boost of 10% to 3.2Ghz and 50 FPS I hope makes the games more playable. Obviously I also try different versions and settings in Dolphin - but it's pretty obvious to me that the inability to overclock most laptops really limits the CPU horsepower on a under-$1000 budget.

Seems like 'false' advertisement (or as the Lenovo rep puts it, a misreported feature on their website). In any case I was looking at their updated catalogue, which explicitly mentions "discrete graphics" with no mention of "switchable graphics" (unlike other laptops in the same catalogue) at all.

Looks like the lack of said Charlie Foxtrot feature turns out to be a boon after all.

Still, the clock speed is probably still inadequate for certain games, as you've mentioned.

On a side note, I've heard many negative reviews about the recent (past two years or so) HP laptops. Durability issues and all that.

(07-06-2011, 05:50 AM)Decimus10 Wrote: [ -> ]On a side note, I've heard many negative reviews about the recent (past two years or so) HP laptops. Durability issues and all that.

Yha, I agree, but the low-end Lenovo's aren't always great either. I'm typing to you on a Lenovo Thinkpad X201 and I've used nothing but ThinkPad's for travel the past 8 years - they are great machine. But, my X201 is entirely unsuitable for Dolphin (well, it does pretty well, which is testament to the progress of Intel integrated graphics and the first-generation i5 CPU).

I got into the lower-quality "consumer" machines as I decided Dolphin was a priority for me when I travel this next 12 months. The laptop CPU options are really not very adequate, and getting a high-quality laptop with i7 3.2Ghz dual core and discrete graphics is relatively expensive.

We won't even get into the cost of all the licensed game discs for Dolphin, haha. That's the real expense.

I own a Sandy Bridge Laptop, Dell Vostro 3450 with Core i7 2620M (dualcore 2.7ghz-3.2 ghz in turbo mode) and Radeon 6630M. I picked this computer for various tasks, and with emulators in mind, too (that's why I picked a dual-core with higher clock speed rather than a quad-core).
Apart from the OpenGL issue mentioned above (which is simply horrible), I am not very satisfied with Dolphin performance on this system. Actually it's not much faster than my old computer (Core 2 Duo T8300 2.4 ghz+GF9500M GS). Sonic Colors goes below fullspeed (18-25 FPS) in a lot of areas, such as the first level and Asteroid Coaster, the last one being quite far from what is called playable. Funnily enough, with all that "Dolphin does not require a very fast graphics card" speculation going on, it runs slower in 720p fullscreen compared to native resolution (which, I assume, is related to graphics card?). DX11 backend improves the situation in some levels, but in others (especially in the first level) makes it even worse.
On the other hand, when I run the monitoring tool, it shows that GPU usage is below 60%, and the CPU usage is not 100% (in 4 threads mode). I tried lots of Dolphin revisions and settings. I even tried setting the affinity of Dolphin.exe to use only 2 threads (that's when the CPU usage for those threads finally reaches 100%), but it is still far from perfect.

To conclude, if you really want to emulate Wii flawlessly on your computer, don't buy a Sandy Bridge laptop. Or maybe wait till the emulator's code is improved and it might run faster.

Actually, my laptop can run most games full speed, like SMG2 with HLE and Brawl. The extra clock speed really helps. Look in my sig.

Quote:With Dolphin 3.0 on Windows 7 x64 on the ATI adapter, I find that Wii Sports is perfect. However, Punch Out is just not cutting it. It lags enough that running below 100% makes the game playable - but not true to console. Some other games are lagging too.

Dolphin 3.0, LOL. I recommend you use the SVN revisions, since 3.0 has serious speed problems due to accurate hardware emulation. I have r7589 (Mamario's builds) x64 bit and it does wonders on both of my desktops. .

(07-08-2011, 09:15 AM)JaredHedgehog Wrote: [ -> ]Dolphin 3.0, LOL. I recommend you use the SVN revisions, since 3.0 has serious speed problems due to accurate hardware emulation. I have r7589 (Mamario's builds) x64 bit and it does wonders on both of my desktops. .

The SVN builds past version 3.0 are 10% to 20% slower on Wii Sports Bowling and Punch Out!. The FPS just is poor with no improvement in emulation. This is on i7 2.2Ghz laptop. The Dolphin textcache-rewrite may be better at emulation on some games, but not the ones I try that max out my system.

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A couple updates. I've got my Dell E6520 for a few days. Dolphin runs far better on this system on Windows 7, despite the GPU being a pretty pathetic one (NVS 4200M). Perhaps Nvidia drivers are far better suited to DirectX11 on Dolphin than the ATI 11.6 drivers on 6770M? The CPU speed alone doesn't account for the difference, as I tried both systems using the Intel graphics chip and 2.0Ghz vs. 2.2Ghz i7 wasn't more than expected.

One really interesting observation I have found about Dolphin on an i5 / i7 laptop! The Dell E6520 BIOS is pretty decent, it allows you to set 1, 2, or 4 cores! I turned on only 2 cores [confirmed by Windows 7 Task Manager] wanting to see if the Intel Turbo would work better (3.1Ghz on dual core vs 2.9Ghz with quad)! THE PUNCH LINE: Dolphin runs better on quadcore than dual-core using the same CPU speeds! Dolphin performed significantly faster in terms of FPS in Wii Sports Bowling and Punch Out! games. MY THEORY: The 3rd core is being used heavily by the Nvidia GPU driver software! I had not previously considered this and had assumed a faster dual-core system would be preference over a slower quad-core system. With the thermal limits in a laptop, it's a complex puzzle.

Learning, learning

I'm in plans of buying a new laptop, I read the ivy bridge likely will launch april 2012, do you think we'll see an Ivy laptop in reasonable time after this? (Right now I have a low performance laptop that is fine for only browsing/office work/OLD games). Reason I consider waiting is I might use it for 5 years